Dance With Me
by koyasufan
Summary: A momentary distraction from life, work, and a lonely night in a bar for Esset's telepath and one of Persia's secretaries. Rated for language.


_Standard disclaimers. Not mine, never will be._

_Edit 11/29/2004: This is the start of the SchuldigxBirman arc of stories. Originally intended to be a one shot, the plot bunnies wouldn't stop with just this fic. The edits here are mostly for continuity sake. Nothing major._

_Edit 4/27/2005: Pulled the lyrics from while Schuldig and Birman are dancing just to be safe. If anyone stumbles over this fic that didn't read it before, it was Jewel's "Intuition" playing.  
_

**Dance With Me**

Schuldig's eyes darted over the crowd in the bar in front of him. This night was not turning out to be such a good one for relieving his boredom, he sighed as he leaned back against the wall behind him. Not that he could always expect to run into one of them...they were all entertaining in their own way. Particularly the Fujimiya boy on the rare occasion that his blonde friend dragged him out.

Which left a crowd of people just wanting to party or de-stress or pick up a fuck for the night.

His head tilted to the side, and he saw the figure that had taken the table closest to the bar along the wall that he was leaning. Waiting for someone? The way they were sitting was certainly tense enough. Didn't help that they kept flicking their eyes to the door, then their watch. Being stood up, then.

He pushed away from the wall and moved to the table silently. Not one of those boys, but at least a distraction. That was better than nothing.

"Waiting for someone?" he purred as he leaned over the woman's shoulder, red hair brushing over her cheek. She smelled like something pretty, but he couldn't quite place the scent.

"Is it any of your business?" she returned almost coldly as she sipped from the glass in her hand.

"Is anything ever anyone else's business?" He smiled as he shifted to pull one of the other chairs over closer to her and sit down. She smirked at that assessment, but didn't respond. "You keep watching the door and the time, and you're not mingling, so you must be waiting. I'm right aren't I?"

Brown eyes closed a bit with that sip, then she nodded. "More like hoping. Someone I know from work comes to this bar occasionally..."

A crush, the German thought to himself, how cute. It didn't quite fit the image that the woman presented, though. She was dressed appropriately enough for the club scene, in an almost skin-tight light blue top that cut _just_ low enough to entice the viewer, but not low enough to reveal more than she wanted. The sleeves were long, and made her arms seem more slender than they probably were. Not that the woman was heavyset by any means, but he got a sense that those arms were a little more muscular than the clothing let on. Her demeanor said that she was a woman capable of taking care of herself.

"Secret crush, eh?" He smiled again. "Well, he's really missing out on something if he hasn't noticed you before now."

She ducked her head a bit with a smile at that line. "So do you pick up all your girls this way, German?"

Schuldig blinked, then realized that she had picked up his accent. His mastery of the language was nearly flawless, but the accent would never go away. Meant she had dealt with other Germans that spoke the language, though. "Nah...just the pretty ones that are sitting in bars looking lost and lonely." He smiled back. "Doesn't look like this coworker of yours is going to show up, and I'm available..."

The woman swirled the glass in her hand, staring at the ice that rattled in it. "I'm not here looking for something to take home and play with...or be played with."

"But you're waiting for this person that doesn't even know you're here. Why?"

She shrugged. "Maybe I hoped I could let him see a side of me that he doesn't see at work."

He chuckled. "I have a feeling that you're not doing very well at that. Of course, to me you look like a scared little girl right now in spite of the air you're trying to put on. But that could be because I've seen so many girls just like you in places like this." Her fingers tightened around the glass, and he reached over to brush the dark strands of hair falling in her face away to touch her cheek. "Come on. Let's dance--loosen you up a bit. He might show up yet, and then he'll see you having some fun. And maybe he'll even be jealous. Just maybe..."

She looked up at him as he stood up and held out a hand to her. "I...can't dance that well. I mean, I can slow dance, but not like this..." Still, she reached up to take his hand.

Fingers wrapped around hers, then he pulled her to her feet. "Then just relax and let your body move with mine." He smiled down at her, pulling her towards the area that served as a dance floor.

She was interesting, and much more than she seemed, he mused as he pulled her close and away from any wandering hands of other dancers. Neither of them had given their names, but he didn't find that odd. There was no intimacy to this, a talk with a stranger...a dance...in the morning, they'd wake up alone in their own beds. Something he wasn't quite used to happening if he met someone on one of the nights that he decided to go out, but she wasn't the type to lure away for a night.

Despite what she said, the woman didn't dance badly. She could move to the music, and that was the important thing in the end. He couldn't help but watch as she moved. Graceful, lithe, like a cat in a lot of her mannerisms. His hands wandered down her sides to rest on her waist, pulling her closer. She was lost in the music, lost in the words of the song playing even though it was in English. She didn't even seem to feel him touch her.

He smiled at the song as it ended, and ducked his head down closer to her. There was that scent...something pretty, but not noticeable unless one was close. Not a floral scent...didn't seem like perfume. Maybe it was just her.

She leaned against him as a slower song came on. They were drawing a few stares from the crowd, from the boys that had tried to pick her up all night. What did that foreigner have that they didn't? He smiled and pulled her closer. She was warm in spite of the cold exterior.

"So what should I call you, German?"

Schuldig smiled at her voice and the question. "German is fine, if I can call you Kitten..."

"Mmm...so what's your story that you don't want me to know your name? Married?"

He shook his head. "Nah, just no sense you getting caught up in anything that surrounds me. It's just a dance, right?"

She nodded against him and repeated the words softly. "Just a dance..."

_My name is Schuld. My mother had a very odd sense of the world, naming me that. I was her shame, her guilt, a living embodiment of everything that she had done in the past._

_In the twenty-three years since my birth, I have always been the one made out to be the bad one...But you make me forget that right now. So, please, just dance with me. Let me be something I'm not, even for just a moment._

_Please, even though I know we're enemies and you'd kill me if you knew what I was, just dance with me..._

_...Birman..._

_Owari_


End file.
